Wave rolls: Dover takes down Spaulding for D-I title

HOOKSETT — From the brink of elimination (twice) to state champions, the Dover High School softball team ran the gamut of emotion during the Division I tournament.

The Green Wave’s survival skills got them through the painful first two rounds, and from there it culminated Saturday with their first D-I state title, an 8-4 win over rival Spaulding at Southern New Hampshire University.

No. 3 Dover (17-5) scored seven runs in the first four innings to jump out 7-1 on the No. 1 Red Raiders (19-3), who were unable to make up the difference against Green Wave junior Molly St. Germain.

“We worked on not hitting (Sami West’s) rise ball and hitting our pitch,” said St. Germain.

“We struck out 16 times when we played them before and we couldn’t lay off that one pitch,” said Dover coach Tim Dudley. “We had two straight days of laying off the rise ball and they did it. The executed the plan.”

Although both teams had 10 hits, Dover’s came at the opportune times.

The Green Wave, who ended with 12 wins in their final 13 games took a 2-0 lead in the first on a key two-out infield error on Mikaela Leighton’s grounder that scored St. Germain and Caroline Schoenbucher from second and third.

Dover widened its advantage to 4-0 in the third on Emily Schlapak’s two-run double off Spaulding ace Sami West. There was some controversy in the inning when the previous batter, Ashley Deyo, lined a ball to the fence in center and was robbed by Spaulding’s Kaley Patterson, who went up against the fence and snatched the ball before it could go over for a home run.

St. Germain was on second. She may have tagged early, but advanced to third base. Spaulding appealed the play, and St. Germain was ruled safe.

Spaulding coach Sheila Colson had no comment on the play.

“I was tagged up,” St. Germain said. “I thought I was.”

“I thought she might have left a little early,” coach Dudley said. “I looked up and she was coming. It was an incredible catch.”

The Red Raiders got on the board in the bottom of the inning when Maddie Provencher singled, was bunted to second by Shannon Colson, and scored on Abby Henderson’s two-out bloop single.

Dover kept the offensive pressure on and added three more runs in the fourth on an error, a walk, a hit batter, and Schoenbucher’s three-run triple to right-center.

Spaulding got it to 7-2 in the fifth when Shannon Colson was hit by a pitch and later scored on West’s sac fly to left.

“We’re big on keeping the pedal to the metal, don’t let them back in it,” coach Dudley said. “Don’t ease off it. We don’t ease up. We didn’t have that bad inning we’ve had in the past.”

Schlapak hit a solo homer in the top of the sixth to widen the gap to 8-2.

“They were keyed in hitting and we had some crucial fielding errors,” West said. “They just had their game together. ... Their were a few spots where we could have got back, but things didn’t swing our way.”